


Still Lives On

by Darci



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: WW1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-19 01:01:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29866776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darci/pseuds/Darci
Summary: Thomas is gifted a photograph, and reflects.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	Still Lives On

Thomas ran a finger over the edge of the photograph in his hand. The corner was bent and he smoothed it flat. He touched the face of the man in the middle of the photograph, then the face of the woman on the left, gently as if he could cup their faces in his hand. They were just as beautiful as he remembered. He didn’t recall a military photographer running about the hospital, but he couldn’t imagine who else would have taken such an image. It would have been a good promotional image, he had to admit. A corporal, a patient, and a nurse, strolling in dappled sunlight, cheerful in the midst of war-- Sybil carefully supporting Edward, guiding him without leading, and Thomas walking beside them, his face turned down and slightly toward Edward. Thomas didn’t need to see the expression on his face to remember that he had been smiling then, huffing out a small laugh at something Edward had said. He couldn’t remember the joke, exactly, but he remembered the feeling of the afternoon. The spring sunlight, blossoming trees, walking in tandem with Sybil and Edward. As if they were friends, though before the war he could never have interacted with them in such a way. He had never felt so included before. So wanted.

He wondered where Clarkson had kept this photograph hidden for so long. The old doctor had claimed that he had found it recently and thought that Thomas should have it. Thomas was grateful for the consideration, though really there was no one else it could have been given to. Sybil and Edward were long gone. Of the three in the photograph only Thomas remained. He had lost so much…

He placed the photograph on his nightstand, leaning it against his lamp so that it faced the bed. But he had no frame for it, he realised, and he couldn’t leave such a photograph where anyone might see it. A servant like him couldn’t keep a picture of a Lady on his nightstand! He picked up the picture, cradling it carefully as if the thick paper might crumble at his touch. It belonged somewhere safe but hidden, and not too hard to reach. Thomas wanted to be able to take it out every once in a while, to retrace the faces and the sunny days disappeared, and to remember. He went to his little bookshelf and drew out a worn paperback. He was the only one in the house who read science fiction, and this particular copy of _The Time Machine_ was ragged and ugly. He had read it often enough that he knew some parts by memory, and as he tucked the photograph between the last page and the back cover his eyes flicked over the final passage that he knew so well:

_And I have by me, for my comfort, two strange white flowers - shriveled now, and brown and flat and brittle - to witness that even when mind and strength had gone, gratitude and a mutual tenderness still lived on in the heart of men._


End file.
